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I recently had a problem where players were clicking on a perfectly valid Rival tracking link where the clicks WERE recorded by the affy system, but it did NOT record when they went on to download & register at the casino…!
This has cost me possibly around 40-50 player registrations.
I used a standard tracking link (same as 100’s times before) in this format;
http://RivalCasino.com/get/a/123456
Has anyone else had this problem, that they know of?
This is my full story (sorry it’s quite long, but I feel all details are important):
On Feb 3rd I posted an advert on a forum using the above format text link (unique to that post).
After 2 days I noticed clicks on the link were recorded, but downloads & registrations were not.
I knew for sure that several players had registered & played at the casino, because they posted about it.
On Feb 5th I contacted the casino in question to tell them about the problem.
On Feb 10th the casino manager replied that they couldn’t see what had happened and so he was “applying pressure” on Rival to get to the bottom of my problem.
On Feb 11th they e-mailed me a new link to use – and so I changed it.
They also said they had “feedback from Rival which indicates that the code which was originally copied from the banner allocation when creating this campaign was changed resulting in the tracking code not following the click through to download. The net result is that the cookie for tracking was ‘lost’.”
If anyone understands what that means & how a link from click-through to download can be lost – please explain!
I checked the report at that time & saw it had recorded 103 clicks, but still no downloads.
I asked on the forum and 16 members confirmed they had definitely clicked my link, downloaded & registered.
As everyone knows, forums have at least twice as many lurkers as members, so I reckon I should have seen double that number again in registrations – probably something in the 48 – 50 range in total.
I told the casino this and they asked me to ask the members for their sign-up names & e-mails. I refused to do this as I felt it was inappropriate to ask for personal details, and anyway why should I do their job for them? In any event this would not help track down the lurkers’ registrations.
I insisted they should get Rival to sort it out.
To their credit, the casino did manage to match and link 3 of my players from their forum names being the same they used as casino user names, but that was still a very small percentage of the total.
With yet another weekend approaching and my patience running very thin, I e-mailed the casino again on Friday Feb 22nd pointing out that Rival had now had over 2 weeks to sort this problem, and yet they still had not given any explanation or solution. I said I would give them 2 working days (until Weds am) to come up with the answers, or I would be forced to take further action.
On Monday the casino manager asked for more time, and out of the total respect I have for him I gave them 3 more days – until midnight on Friday Feb 27th.
Obviously that deadline has been & gone, and still no answer from Rival more than 3 weeks since I first reported this MAJOR issue, hence this post.
They did not want this made public, but since they have been unable to give me any sort of an answer or any assurance that this is a one-off incident which for some reason only effected my one link, I felt it was my duty to report this to my fellow affiliates in case any of you are suffering ‘lost players’ in the same way I did and want to get it investigated.
A few notes:
a) I feel I was very patient & gave Rival & the casino ample time to sort this MAJOR problem (more than 3 weeks), I sent the casino 12 e-mails chasing a solution, and they replied with a total of 12 e-mails too.
b) I totally blame Rival for this problem because it is their software which is used for the affy reporting. That is why I am not naming the casino in question – it is not their fault and they do seem to have tried very hard to help me with this issue.
c) The new link they gave me was in the format hXXp: //www. RivalCasino.com/index.php?curency=GBP&id=123456
and definitely does work. Since I changed it I had a further 20 clicks, and 6 registrations were recorded in the normal way – this is about the minimum conversion rate I would normally expect.
d) I have just checked every campaign on all the Rivals I promote. On all of them except 2, every one which has any clicks has at least 1 download registered. The ones which didn’t had 15 & 9 clicks – I will investigate further…
All feedback appreciated, especially from any other affiliates who have had this same issue.
Thanks,
KK
PS: I think there is an easy way to see if your links are working or not;
When I copy and paste any other links into my browser, it changes to this format:-
hXXp: //www. RivalCasino.com/?id=123456
But when I do the same with my problem link I see this:-
hXXp: //www. RivalCasino.com/index.php
All codes were in the exact same format - so I can not understand why this problem one should be any different...
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Originally Posted by RobWin
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